


(how could you allow me) to love you so

by hooksandheroics



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Angst, But of a Different Kind, Domesticity, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 08:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14209050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: She doesn't think she deserves a lot of things but when it's Scott that tells her that she does, it gives her a different kind of pain.





	(how could you allow me) to love you so

**Author's Note:**

  * For [candid59](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candid59/gifts), [ladyfriday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfriday/gifts).



> i have never done a sin in my entire life, please don't kill me
> 
> (also i wouldn't be here without cam and tara so this is for them)
> 
> also, title is from keaton henson's song, How Could I Have Known

Tessa wakes up to an empty bed in an unfamiliar room, feeling dread start to coil at the bottom of her stomach, and suddenly, she’s twenty again, right after the Vancouver games, clutching the sheets right next to her as she tries to slow her breathing down and remember just _who_ she came home with to celebrate her (their) victory.

She feels the sun, streaming through the window, feels the warmth beside her (and all over her, under her skin, in her blood – everywhere), but still. There’s no one there. Just her –

The kitchen just outside the room comes alive with a hushed giggle, and suddenly she’s in the present, and it’s a _familiar_ room, the pillow has a familiar scent, and the sun is a familiar sun. She remembers that today is a Sunday and they usually let her sleep in until nine even when she often promises to make breakfast the night before. The dread in her stomach morphs into content, seeping into her bones, languid and _happy_.

It’s five minutes later that she finally decides to get up, blinking blearily at the hallway leading to the kitchen where a little mess of dark toddler hair clad in Buzz Lightyear pajamas is standing on a foot stool, looking over a skillet of omelet like her life depended on it. Beside her is an equally messy-haired Scott, white tank rumpled like he just hopped out of bed (or got dragged out of it, probably by a toddler), smiling at her little girl like sprinkling chives on eggs is the most amazing achievement. Her little girl, sweet little Suzy, smiles up at him and Tessa would never admit it, but her heart always stops for a beat or two. They look like two conniving thieves, two halves of a whole.

Suzy is all of four years old, the most determined four-year old anyone has ever seen. Were it not for Scott, the little girl would not have stopped hitting pucks on the hockey rink in her oversized gear and a stick about twice her height yesterday afternoon. It’s when Scott was lacing up Suzy’s normal shoes that he looks up at her with a sheepish smile and says, “Well, that’s close enough, right?”

And Tessa, she wasn’t even wishing for a child who will inherit figure skating, and this one will probably never touch a thinner blade, but she still feels her heart grow two sizes. At least one of them can be there for the little girl if she wishes to take up hockey as a sport. Scott can take her to games, can maybe run around the rink with her when she gets old enough to really play. Tessa might have to step in when she learns too many swear words. Thinking of the future – of that future, feels little bit like cheating. She doesn’t think she deserved to think of a future like that, but… it’s Scott and Suzy. Two of the only few constants in her life.

And she will never get tired of seeing these two like this. Even when the kitchen looks a mess around them, even with Suzy’s shirt covered with egg yolk. (She thinks about yesterday when she was instead covered in the chocolate that’s supposed to go on her ice cream. She thinks about Scott laughing when she squirts the bottle down his shirt. Neither Tessa nor Scott of can prove that she did it on purpose.)

She’s still leaning on the doorway, trying to wake up (god knows how long that takes her) when Scott turns to the counter to get the eggshells and sees her. His face, after twenty-five years, still makes her feel like she’s eighteen, still brings her around in the mornings like it usually does. She can’t help but return it.

(And god help her, it’s a little bit like the universe has been taunting her for the last two decades and a half because she still wants to see that smile every day. It’s not cheating when she saves a picture of him and Suzy on the swings yesterday. Those smiles.)

“Hey, baby,” he tells Suzy, lifting her off the stool. “Say good morning to mommy, come on.”

Suzy, who was so distracted by the eggs that she didn’t notice Tessa, jumped up into Tessa’s arms and buried her face into her neck. She feels warm, full of love and snot and eggs, smells like toast and something suspiciously like coffee, and all of a sudden, this is all she’s ever wanted. A Sunday morning, her little girl, her best friend, and a messy kitchen.

“We’re making breakfast!” she giggles into Tessa’s hair, stumbling over the long words. “We made your favorite.”

Tessa tilts her head back to look at her daughter’s little smirking face. “Yeah, and who gave away my secret?”

And Suzy, poor Suzy, was ready to spill, ready to point her finger, when suddenly, she’s being lifted away from her mother’s embrace and into the air by a pair of strong arms and the small room fills with loud squeals and giggles. Tessa is laughing too because Scott is spinning her, threatening the small, harmless girl with tickles for trading state secrets –

“Suzanne Marie,” Scott warns when he lets her down on the floor, still shaking with the giggles. She can see in Scott’s soft eyes the exact weight of his tone. And the way he looks at the little girl, like he’s never seen a more beautiful sight. Tessa just _knows_. “If you rat me out like that again, you know what happens.”

Suzy laughs again and then scampers away to escape or hide, they don’t know, but it leaves just them in the kitchen. Scott turns the stove off, pours her coffee in her favorite orange mug, and hands it to her.

Suddenly it’s quiet and peaceful once again in Montreal. It’s just Scott and Tessa, a counter between them, and the smell of coffee –

“Did you just give a four-year old coffee?” she accuses, eyeing the blue mug on the other end.

Scott shoots her an offended look, hand going to his chest. “I would never…” he gasps, rather dramatically, “give her a whole cup. Just a gulp. Or so she said.”

“Scott!”

He pouts and turns his charms on for her like that worked for the last couple of decades. Still, she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “ _You_ will be responsible for whatever happens when she eventually gets addicted.”

He turns around the counter and perches on the stool next to her, (close, too close) smiling at her all hazel eyes and coffee breath and Tessa’s mind suddenly stops working for a second –

“Aw, come on, Tess,” he says into her space, eyes bright and smiling. “You won’t ever leave me like that. We’re in this together, right?”

And the way his voice turned soft and rough at the same time at the question breaks her heart. Of course, they’re in this together. Despite everything, they’re in this together –

She watches his eyes drop to her mouth, his eyelids flutter like he’s seeing something he really likes but can never touch, licks his lips like he wants a taste –

“Mommy!”

They jump apart, feeling seventeen again in a supply closet smelling like detergent soap and wet rags. They both turn towards the doorway to where Suzy is clutching her plastic Little Mermaid plate and her mismatched spoon and fork.

“I found them!” the girl says, grinning like she just had not interrupted something. “Can we have breakfast now?”

In the end, they have their breakfast in front of the TV because it’s Sunday morning and the child is their pilot. She eats on her own little table away from the couch while they put their plates on the center table as they all sing along to the Little Mermaid, Suzy, loudly; Tessa, humming; Scott, trying not to, but failing. His arm, like it always does, finds its way around Tessa’s shoulders, and her head falls to the crook of his neck, all warm and content.

His hair is getting longer again and it reminds her of dark blue fabric against her soft pink dress, Sam Smith on the huge speakers, his soft eyes – he turns those eyes to her again and smiles, like he knew just what she was thinking about. His thumb caresses the skin of her shoulder and she fights the shiver she felt at the top of her spine. He doesn’t need to know how much of an effect he has on her, not when there’s a child present.

It doesn’t help though, that his little commentaries are whispered right into her ear, or that when he laughs, she feels it through her body where it’s pressed against his. Or when something sappy happens onscreen and he bites his lip and looks at her like _that_.

Sometime in the middle of the second movie (The Mighty Ducks, _again_ ) Suzy found her way between them, putting a distance that Tessa welcomed and dreaded at the same time (she thinks, it _has_ been twenty-five years, she should be sick of this – but she’s not, she doesn’t think she ever will). She bounces up and down on the couch at the exciting parts, kicks her legs into Scott’s chest when she tries to lay down with her head on Tessa’s lap. She watches Scott wheeze and pretend it didn’t hurt while she hid her smirk behind a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.

They go into noon like that, arguing about whether Suzy is allowed to play with boys in the rink (she’s tiny, and Tessa knows she will grow more as she gets older but she’s _tiny_ ), and where she can play with girls her age. Scott has a few suggestions, rinks he frequented, and it’s just like him to make sure Suzy is safe. She can already feel it, can already see it.

Gadbois gave him a position a year ago and he’s doesn’t like to brag about it, but he has been thriving ever since with coaching the junior teams. They all love him, they all cite him (and Tessa by extension) as their inspiration, but she can see him filing for leaves to watch Suzy’s little leagues, screaming at the boards like all those other times with all those other teams. Only this time, Tessa can see his proud stance, and the way he will probably replace all the swear words in his vocabulary with something more child-friendly, more dessert-centric, and it would be his smile to her when Suzy scores for the team – (and it’s not cheating, she deserves this).

Suzy is getting animated, demonstrating how she will hit the puck (Tessa hopes it’s the puck she’s trying to hit with her imaginary stick, she somehow lagged out of the conversation), and Scott is probably fueling her enthusiasm, telling her all about the Stanley Cup, all about the only team she needs to cheer for. Suzy probably doesn’t understand, all she cares about is hitting one into the goal and knocking everybody out of her way, to which Scott laughs and says, “That’s my girl!”

And Tessa, her heart rips open right down the middle.

She doesn’t think, just leans over to where Scott is lying down with Suzy on his chest, and kisses his forehead. It felt like she lingered for too long, for maybe an eternity in the space of a second, until the serenity of the moment is shattered by a giggle and –

“Mommy, your hair tickles!”

She leans up again and lifts her off of Scott, tapping her nose just to see her wrinkle it in irritation. “You’re done eating, right? Time to put away your dishes, young lady.”

She pouts but still waddles away to do as she’s told.

Tessa doesn’t get to even breathe out when suddenly, Scott is upright next to her, looking at her with this broken sort of look that she hates that she loves.

“You kissed me like you were saying goodbye,” he says, and yes. Always to the point, that has always been them. Scott, and Tessa, and the _point_. “What’s wrong, T?”

“Can’t I just kiss you?” she asks, and it’s the wrong thing to say, she knows it. She just… doesn’t have anything better.

He sighs and leans back on the couch, pulling at her arm so she does the same, and just like that, they’re back to having no space between them at all.

“Of course you can,” he says softly, rubbing her arm where his palm has burnt a claim. “But you say that as if I can’t see right through you. You know I can.”

Tessa shakes her head (at the ridiculousness of it all, at the absurdity of everything) and looks at him, only to see the plea in his eyes. She wants to thread her fingers through his hair, lean her forehead against his, breathe in his sighs, and stay in this bubble forever.

“I just…” she starts, and then pauses because there are no right words for this. This is her life now. Somewhere between winning golds and silvers, somewhere between Michigan and Pyeongchang and then Montreal, there was Scott. There _is_ Scott, still. It will always feel surreal whenever someone mentions the exact number of years they have been together to her out loud, even when before she slips into sleep at night, she counts them in her head like when one counts sheep. It’s a reminder, Tessa tells herself every time she looks at him, that despite everything, there _can_ be a constant someone. _Someones now,_ this she tells herself next, and then stops that thought before it can latch on.

She lays her head on his chest and sighs. “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

“Like this?” he asks, and she can’t see his face but she knows his eyebrows are doing _that_ thing when he’s confused, and she can tell _when_ he got her meaning when his fingertips tighten just a little bit on her bare skin. “Yeah – yes we can,” he says, and then in a stronger voice, “we _can_ , Tessa.”

He pulls her in closer, warmth and strength and all the good things he has always been to her. (She cannot possibly deserve this.) “You and I, we’re in this together until the end. No matter what, remember?”

“Yeah, I do,” she replies weakly, fingers clutching at his shirt right on his stomach.

“You deserve to be happy, Tessa,” he says, matching her tone. And out of all the stupid things he has ever said in his entire life, this has to be the most stupid. It makes her angry, so fiercely and so suddenly that her eyes start to water and her throat starts to close up, and he must feel it because he says her name once or twice, all soft and confused.

“You,” Tessa says, voice shaking with tears that she won’t let fall. She buries her head further into his chest because damn him he makes her so angry but he also knows how to bury his fingers in her hair to calm her, something no one knows. (Or maybe it’s just him, Tessa dreads to think.) “Why would you say that?”

She lifts herself up from his embrace to look him in the eyes. She doesn’t cry, not in front of him and not with Suzy in the next room. But his face, it tells her so many things. He looks resolute, he looks apologetic, he looks like he loves everything about her and Suzy and this little life – and she loves this life too.

She loves her new job at Vince and Co., she loves her family, she loves Scott. She just –

The doorbell rings, and Scott’s expression drops like a stone. His eyes go dead, his mouth slack (not a frown, not a pout, just… blank), his jaw clenches, and he straightens from his position on the couch. Tessa misses him already.

There’s an eternity of silence before he gets up and opens the door, his smile coming in late to greet –

A mess of toddler hair and Buzz Lightyear pajamas breeze past Scott and right to –

“Daddy!” Suzy exclaims, and she’s being lifted into the air by a pair of arms that’s not Scott’s.

It’s him, with his bright smile and his sharp eyes and his neatly pressed suit, and Tessa’s ears ring with her heart beating too fast in her chest. It feels like getting caught, but then, not really.

She thinks she should be happy, Harvey is back right from the airport, probably missed her and Suzy, probably bought Suzy toys from wherever he came from for business. But when she looks at Scott and sees just how brittle his smile is when Harvey reaches for his hand to shake and thank him for taking care of his girls for the weekend, she feels her stomach fill with a weight that’s been hanging by a thread all weekend.

Suzy tells Harvey about hockey and the Stanley Cup, tells him about ice cream with Uncle Scott at an hour that she was supposed to be in bed, and then she tells him about sleeping in Uncle Scott’s bed with mommy while Uncle Scott slept in the guest bedroom full of trophies and medals, and how she dragged Uncle Scott up at an unholy hour to surprise mommy with breakfast, and the hundredth re-watch of _The Mighty Ducks_ in their pajamas.

All the while, Scott’s brittle smile disappears and longing creeps into his eyes as Harvey tells Suzy to thank Uncle Scott for making her weekend fun.

And then it’s all a blur as Tessa crosses the doorway to kiss Harvey hello, as she puts on a smile and turns around to thank Scott for letting them stay for the weekend, something that Suzy has been bugging her about ever since the last time Harvey was out for a couple of days. She loves you, she tells Scott, and watches as he nods numbly. She asks Harvey to wait for her in the car, she just has to check if Suzy left anything, and when they’re gone, she drags Scott into the kitchen and kisses him.

It’s that moment that’s clear in her mind. It stops being a blur and she feels his hands on her waist, pulling her closer. It’s not on the lips, no. Her lips are on the corner of his mouth, and she feels more than hears the surprise in his breath. And in the tightening of his fingertips on the skin of her waist, she feels the desperation she keeps so close to her heart.

She is pulling away, but he makes this tiny noise in the back of his throat and pulls her back in, hears the plea in his whispered, “Wait”, and she stays.

She’s not kissing him anymore, just laying her head on his chest where she hears his heart and his breathing.

One day, this will become too much for her to handle. Something is going to fall apart. But right now, they haven’t done anything, and right now, it’s okay.

It’s him and her.

**Author's Note:**

> i would tell yall to follow me on tumblr but that place is a mess so find me on twitter, i'm the same username. also leave a kudos or a comment or both. let me know what yall think!


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